230 M. Gh. Naudin on Hyhridiiy in Plants. 



this last, at least in the adult state, is an aggregation of 

 particles, both homogeneous and unspecific when taken 

 separately, but distributed more or less equally between the 

 two species, and mixed in different proportions in the 

 organs of the plant. The hybrid, according to this hypo- 

 thesis, would be a living mosaic, the discordant elements of 

 Avhich, so long as they remained mixed, would be undis- 

 tinguishable to the eye ; but if, in consequence of their affini- 

 ties, the elements of the same species approached each 

 other and agglomerated themselves in small masses, parts 

 and sometimes entire organs, would then be visible, as we 

 have seen in Cytisus Adami, and the bizarre group of the 

 orange and citron hybrids, &c. It is this tendency of two 

 specific essences to disengage themselves from their com- 

 bination, which has induced some hybridologists to say, 

 that hybrids resemble the mother by their leaves and the 

 father by their flowers. 



Although the facts may not be sufficiently numerous to 

 conclude with certainty, it seems that the tendency of 

 species to separate, or, so to speak, to localise themselves in 

 various parts of the hybrid, increases with the age of the 

 plant, and is more and more pronounced as the vegetation 

 approaches its term. These disjunctions become more 

 manifest in the highest organisms of hybrids, about the 

 reproductive organs ; in Cytisus Adami disjunction shows 

 itself in the flowering brandies ; in the orange anomalies 

 and Datura Stramonio-lcevis in the fruit itself. In 

 Mirahilis longifloro-Jalapa diudi Linaria jpurpurea the corolla 

 manifests the phenomenon of disjunction, by the separation 

 of the colour peculiar to the producing species. These facts 

 authorise the idea that the pollen and ovules, but especially 

 the former, are precisely the parts of the plant where dis- 

 junction goes on with most energy ; and what adds a 

 greater degree of probability to this hypothesis is, that they 

 are at the same time very elaborate and minute organs — a 

 double reason for rendering the localisation of the two 

 essences more perfect. This hypothesis being admitted, 

 and I confess it seems to me extremely probable, all the 

 changes which supervene in hybrids of the second and more 

 advanced generations would explain themselves, as it were ; 



